A High Court judge has rejected an animal rights group’s bid for a judicial review of the sentence given to a man who admitted to abusing his dog.Justice Patrick Wells on Wednesday ruled against the application filed by Be Their Voice Inc., saying the group “has no standing” in the case.In 2022, Davino Shakell Howard was charged after a video of him allegedly drowning his dog, Sparky, at Pebbles Beach went viral on social media. The then 28-year-old admitted to charges of animal cruelty, failing to license a dog, and withholding information and he was sentenced to 12 months probation and mandated counselling.Seeking a tougher penalty for Howard, Be Their Voice, represented by attorney-at-law Lalu Hanuman, filed a request for judicial review. However, speaking from the bench in the No. 10 Supreme Court on Wednesday, Justice Wells said the group had no grounds for the review, as it was not a party in the matter.“What we have here is a group which was not the person before the court, a group that was not sentenced by the court, coming and saying ‘we want you to make a decision on the magistrate because we do not think the punishment was harsh enough’. That is not what a judicial review is about because I cannot disturb anything about the findings unless these were not supported by facts,” the judge said.He further ruled that the group had no legal standing since the magistrate’s sentence did not impact them directly or indirectly.
